


Quite a Catch

by MayGlenn



Series: May's February Ficlet Challenge 2019 [2]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Books, Established Relationship, Fangorn Forest, Interspecies Relationship(s), M/M, Magic, Tolkien Would Hate This, Total Disregard for Canon Speech Patterns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-03
Updated: 2019-02-03
Packaged: 2019-10-21 11:30:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17641961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayGlenn/pseuds/MayGlenn
Summary: “Legolas, you Silvan hick, I’m telling you, it’s because it’s written in moon-letters!”





	Quite a Catch

**Author's Note:**

> I'm definitely going off the version of The Lord of the Rings on Tumblr (which is really closer to the books than the movies) where Gimli is the most eligible bachelor among all Dwarfkind and Legolas is just a Silvan hick who's dating way out of his league. 
> 
> This ficlet is just such a Legolas loving and appreciating his boyfriend.

“Legolas, you Silvan hick, I’m _telling_ you, it’s because it’s written in moon-letters!”

Legolas turned up his nose, wounded at being called a ‘Silvan hick,’ but ever since Aragorn let it slip on the slopes of Amon Hen that one time, it had stuck. “ _I_ still think it’s just an empty book.”

“It can’t be an empty book. Who binds a book before they’ve written anything in it? Also, moon-letters are written with treated mithril, and I think I can smell traces of it on the paper,” Gimli said, annoying Legolas now at how knowledgeable he was about apparently everything—not just stonecunning or whisky tasting or whatever you _expected_ Dwarves to be good at. Gimli had far more class than _anyone_ in his father’s court, as a rule, and fit right in among the older and more stately and learned courts in Lothlórien and Rivendell. There were few subjects in which Legolas could hope to match him, but it mostly made him proud, or fond, or, in his worse moments, petty (“My boyfriend is smarter than your boyfriend”). But right now he was just jealous.

Legolas had had such a privileged upbringing that, for all the two-thousand years he had on Gimli, he had apparently squandered much of his youth when he could have been learning arts and culture and oration and rhetoric and diplomacy and agriculture and a thousand other topics that Gimli was conversant in. Such as bookmaking. Did they even _have_ a bookmaker in the Greenwood? And Gimli, Dwarven nobility though he was, knew backbreaking work, too, for in his youth, before the Lonely Mountain was reclaimed from Smaug, he grew up mining in the Ered Luin as a day laborer.

All this thought of his friend, irritatingly perfect though he was, was softening Legolas to his point of view, and he sat down beside him in the cool moss. They were wandering Fangorn Forest, now that King Elessar was on the throne and the periannath had returned safely to the Shire. Legolas had spotted something glinting in the tree roots (there was _one_ area in which Gimli was woefully inadequate and which Legolas excelled, and that was his keen senses—though that was hardly a cultivated or learned skill, so it didn’t exactly count), and Gimli had dug it up in excitement, and here they were. There were no ents around, not even huorns, to ask, so Gimli had cleaned off the cover using his beard combs and other mysterious items from his dopp kit (ah, there was another area in which Legolas had the advantage, as Legolas had naturally perfect hair that required very little maintenance) while Legolas unearthed a packet of lembas to split.

“We should save that! The Lady won’t be in Middle-earth forever, you know,” Gimli scolded Legolas, but he ate it just the same, and savored it with a smile on his face.

Legolas only smiled fondly, already knowing that the Lady Galadriel would rather sue Eru himself to let Gimli to live in Valinor than give up her lembas recipe, and anyway she hadn’t journeyed across the sea yet, enjoying being a big fish in a small pond too much still, even without her ring. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem, somehow.”

“You think she’ll bake me a lifetime supply before she goes?” Gimli asked wryly. After the three strands of hair incident, _and_ after hearing the story of the great Fëanor's failed suit for even one strand of her hair, Gimli dared to be a little smug about the whole thing, and thought the Lady Galadriel might give him anything he asked for. (He was probably right, Legolas thought, and jealousy of a different kind flared up again.)

“Well, alright, if they’re moon-letters, we won’t know until—well, until we get out of this part of the forest,” Legolas said, standing up and shouldering his pack again. “The tree cover is too dense to see the moon, if it’s even out tonight.”

“That’s why you’re going to help me climb a tree. Of course it’s out tonight, don’t you know what day it is?”

Legolas rolled his eyes at Gimli’s perfect keeping of time, but climbing was definitely an area where Legolas had the clear advantage: Gimli was heavy, rather uncoordinated, and wasn’t fond of heights, so he laughed—and then he realized Gimli was serious.

“You can’t be serious. What if I climb the tree and tell you what I see in the book?”

“It’s probably written in Khuzdul,” Gimli pointed out.

“Well. I at least know enough to sound out the words and shout them down to you.”

“Legolas.”

“ _Gimli_.”

They stared at each other, making increasingly desperate faces at each other, until they were both laughing.

“Fine! Your funeral!”

“We’ve been over this. No mortal jokes.”

…

“Legolas, I can’t possibly put my weight on that branch.”

“Well, spread it out on that branch next to it.”

“Next to it? I can’t straddle those two branches!”

 _I told you this was a bad idea!_ Legolas thought, but what he said aloud was, “Take my hand.”

Eventually, finally, they made it close enough to the top of the treeline to get some moonlight filtering down on them. Legolas breathed deep in the fresh air, but Gimli was whiteknuckling the tree trunk and Legolas’ hand, moaning faintly at the great height.

Legolas grinned. “I told you you wouldn’t like this.”

Gimli snorted. “Alright. Can you reach the book?”

Legolas kept grinning. “Can’t _you_?”

“Legolas, if you ever want to sleep with me ever again—”   

“Alright, alright! This was your stupid idea,” Legolas reminded him, but obediently retrieved the book and opened it, holding the pages up one by one so the moonlight could filter through them.

“A bit closer?” Gimli asked. “No, now you’re out of the light—right—there! Perfect! You’re perfect!”

 _You’re the perfect one_ , Legolas thought, as Gimli’s mouth began moving and he squinted at the book. Legolas waited, standing perfectly still. Gimli was  a lot of things, but a climber was not one of them, so the trip straight up, with Gimli panting and struggling, had made Legolas feel at least a little less like the reacher in the relationship. Still, the dwarf had persevered—Legolas remembered a time when he cursed the stiff necks of Dwarves!—and had done it in the end.

Gimli’s laugh startled him out of his memory. It started as a sharp bark of laughter, but then he kept laughing. “Oh, no.”

Legolas smiled nervously. “What? Is it a book of naughty poetry? Dirty riddles?”

“It’s worse than that,” Gimli said, and reached between them to push the book to Legolas’ chest, shaking his head. “It’s in Elvish. Quenya, I think, my Quenya is terrible.”

“What?” Legolas cried in giddy delight, turning the book around and holding it up to the light so he could see, leaning back precariously until the branch beneath him creaked, and he had to pretend to have known that was going to happen if he was to keep his dignity—but Gimli still laughed.

“Well, my Quenya isn’t great, either, but I have some good news! I think it’s a book of naughty poetry!”

Gimli started laughing again. “Okay, okay, but it is _good_ naughty poetry, or is it that trash your dad—?”

“And if _you_ ever want to sleep with _me_ again, you’ll leave my dad out of whatever you were about to say.”

Gimli sighed, holding onto his branch for dear life. “Fine. Let’s get down from here and read naughty poetry to each other, huh?” He chuckled again. “Moon-letters written in Elvish. I can’t believe it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Second in the February Ficlet Challenge of 2019, AKA, Look, I *Can* Write By Myself. The prompt was "Blank Book."


End file.
